Housekeeping Post: 2010 BBAW Resigtration

Best Literary Fiction Reviews

1) Review of Clown Girl by Monica Drake; 

2) Review of Missing Mom by Joyce Carol Oates;

3) Review of The Marmot Drive by John Hersey;

4) Review of Cold Comfort Farm by Sheila Gibbons; and

5) Review of Portland Noir, edited by Kevin Sampsell.

Best Written Book Blog

1) Review of Leaving Brooklyn by Lynn Sharon Schwartz;

2) Review of The Grail by Brian Doyle;

3) Review of A Year in the World by Frances Mayes;

4) Review of Eden Springs by Laura Kasischke; and

5) Review of City Limits by David Oates.

Review of the Day: Play It As It Lays

Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays is brilliant and heartbreaking. It packs more raw tragedy into its 214 pages than entire bookshelves can hold.

Maria Wyeth was a promising actress who starred in two feature films (one distributed) directed by her husband. But now Maria’s career has fizzled, her marriage is on the rocks, and her four-year-old daughter is institutionalized because she has “an aberrant chemical in her brain.”

Maria is heading for a big crack up. But before she gets there, she has to face an abortion, various adulteries, some rough sex, prescription drug issues, and jaded Hollywood ennui.

Didion’s novel is bleak, spare, and cold. The characters – even Maria – are not given to introspection. The scenes in the book feel like movie shots, with the emotion coming from what is seen and heard, not what is going on inside anyone’s head.

The abortion theme is particularly brutal – this book does for abortion rights what Looking for Mr. Goodbar does for sexual independence – but the whole book is difficult. It will leave a stain on the psyche.

NOTES

This book appears on the All-TIME Top 100 list and Erica Jong's list of Top 100 books by women.

OTHER REVIEWS

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